چکیده انگلیسی

Stalking may be defined as repeated following, communicating, and contacting a person in a threatening manner that causes the person to fear, on a reasonable basis, for his or her safety. Stalking is a recent legal construct, and social scientific research on stalking is in an early stage. Given that the most common victim of stalking is an ex-intimate partner, there may be an association between stalking and domestic violence. This paper evaluates this potential link. Specifically, the literature on stalking is reviewed by means of comparing it to existing literature on typologies of domestically violent persons. It is proposed that most stalkers who target ex-intimate partners are characterologically similar to a type of batterer labeled “borderline/cyclical.” Both domestic stalkers and borderline/cyclical batterers possess traits of Cluster B personality disorders. These traits include emotional volatility, attachment dysfunction, primitive defenses, weak ego strength, jealousy, anger, substance abuse, and early childhood trauma. Further, both groups have been observed to react with rage to perceived or actual rejection or abandonment. It is suggested that applying what is known about borderline/cyclical batterers to stalkers may aid in the investigation of this phenomenon. Implications for research are discussed.

مقدمه انگلیسی

As Meloy (1998) states, “stalking is an old behavior, but a new crime” (p. xix). This statement indicates that while stalking has likely always been a part of human behavior, it is only recently that it has received legal recognition as an offensive behavior. In fact, the first anti-stalking law in North America was passed less than a decade ago in California (Penal Code Section 646.9). Most states followed suit shortly thereafter (Saunders, 1998). In Canada, anti-stalking legislation, termed criminal harassment, was promulgated in 1993 as Section 264 of the Canadian Criminal Code.
Stalking has been defined similarly in these legal settings. Classification of a stalking generally requires repeated direct or indirect acts of following, communicating, besetting, watching, contacting, and threatening in such a way as to cause the victim to fear, on reasonable grounds, for his or her safety. Although other terms have been used to denote this behavior, such as “obsessional following” Meloy, 1997, Meloy, 1998 and Meloy & Gothard, 1995, and “criminal harassment” (Section 264 of the Code), the term “stalking” will be used throughout this paper.
Stalking is often accompanied by physical violence (Meloy, 1998) and as such, it is recognized that stalking can seriously effect the victim (Hall, 1998). Further, the largest victim group is female ex-intimate partners (Meloy, 1998), establishing, prima facie, an association between stalking and domestic violence. Although the extant research on stalking is in a very young stage, and little is truly known about it, the research on domestic violence is much more developed. As such, given this tentative connection between stalking and domestic violence, it may be that research and theory from the domestic violence corpus could be used to contribute to the study of stalking.
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the potential link between stalking and domestic violence. The literature on stalking will be reviewed with the goal of abstracting patterns of stalking characteristics and juxtaposing these on well-defined typologies of domestically violent people. The rationale of this approach is to understand the functioning, behavior, emotional constitution, and psychological profile of stalkers. The goal is to enhance the existing information base concerning the phenomenon of stalking and to suggest testable hypotheses.
1. Nature and prevalence of stalking
There are several research projects that have assessed the prevalence of stalking. Kong (1996), in a report for Statistics Canada, reported that in 1994 and 1995, there were 7462 incidents of criminal harassment reported to police. The survey employed the Revised Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCRS). This method functions as a means for gathering information from participating police agencies. Close to half (43%) of all police agencies in Canada were involved. Hence, although this was a large-scale survey, it was neither comprehensive nor random.
If 100% of police agencies were involved in reporting their statistics for the UCRS, extrapolating from the statistic of 43%, (assuming no selection bias was present for reporting agencies that would serve to differentiate them from non-reporting ones), then the figure of 7462 would be 17,353. Based on a population of approximately 30 million, this represents a prevalence of 0.06, or six people per 1000 people. If the adult population (approximately 20 million) is used in this calculation, then the Canadian annual prevalence is approximately 0.09, or nine people per 1000 (about 1%).
In the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), sponsored by the United States Department of Justice (1997), 8000 men and 8000 women were randomly selected to participate in telephone interviews concerning victimization. This report found that the US lifetime incidence of stalking is 8.1% for women, and 2.2% for men. The extrapolated figures, offered by the NCVS, for individuals who have been stalked at some point in their lives are 2.04 million American women and 820,000 men. Past year estimates were placed at 1.01 million women and 370,000 men. Clearly, the scope of the problem of stalking is vast.

نتیجه گیری انگلیسی

These research suggestions may begin to offer more concrete support for the observations and hypotheses made throughout this paper. It appears that the most typical stalking scenario involves ex-intimate partners. Violence is common in the past relationship, and is common during the stalking episode. Domestic stalkers and certain batterers share a host of common characterological similarities, such as BPOs, jealousy, anger, abandonment rage, poorly integrated ego and primitive defenses, dysfunctional attachment styles, substance abuse, and emotional volatility. Both groups also tend to confine their aggression to relationships, although stalkers may more commonly have criminal histories (although this may stem from methodological artifact).
It is proposed that a high proportion of domestic stalkers would fit into the borderline/cyclical batterer sub-group — they are one and the same. There is certainly a theoretical and conceptual basis for this statement. There also is some amount of empirical support, both direct and indirect. It is of course only through systematic research that the exact overlap between these groups can be evaluated. The model of the borderline/cyclical batterer may be a rich source of theory and research from which to draw in order to inform research on stalking.